Bilousov O. Mutations of the genes miniature and dusky and their impact on wing maturation in Drosophila melanogaster

The genes miniature, also dusky, and their protein products are required for the late stages of pupal D. melanogaster wing development. They are predominantly expressed in wing epithelia and affect properties of its extracellular matrix. Such features make them expected participants of D. melanogaster wing maturation processes which are triggered by neurohormone bursicon soon after fly eclosion from a pupal case. We defined role of the Miniature protein as a main actor, and also Dusky as an auxiliary partner in processes, which happen during expansion of a wing blade. To come to this conclusion such mutations of dusky and/or miniature as dy1, m1, m259-4, mD, Df(1)MR and Df(1)BSC541 were preliminarily analyzed in sense of their influence on the running of D. melanogaster wing maturation processes after fly eclosion, specifically: slowdown of apoptosis and potentially epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of the wing epithelial cells. Besides, approximate Miniature functional place of acting in Bursicon/Rickets signal cascade was determined, and additionally the absence of the direct physical interaction of bursicon and Miniature was demonstrated. As the result of investigation, hypothetical models were created in order to explain the impact of Miniature and Dusky proteins on regulation of D. melanogaster wing maturation processes, which are triggered in reply to the bursicon signal.